The final rankings determine the 12 teams that fill the NY6 spots, with the top 4 teams in the playoffs, then the P5 and highest ranked conference champs, then any unmet contracted spots in the Rose, Sugar and Orange (if those bowls are not hosting a semi-final game). These are the guaranteed bids.

Finally, any still vacant spots are filled by the highest ranked teams that are left. A higher ranked team CANNOT be skipped for a lower ranked team.

The Committee and the bowls arrange the teams in the bowls based on what will make the best matchups and geography, etc. This is where the “flexibility” comes in. But they cannot simply decide to skip over a team and place a lower-ranked team in a NY6 bowl.

What they can do, however, is choose how they rank teams so that a given team is one of the teams that will qualify. Since there is no formal rubric for selection, they could choose to rank an 0-12 team that has lost to the 12 worst teams in college football amongst the teams that qualify for a NY6 and leave out a 12-0 team that has beaten the 12 best teams in college football every.

Obviously, that is a ludicrous scenario, but that is how they can skip teams they choose aren’t worthy of a NY6.

They can’t simply ignore the rankings and choose a lower-ranked team as an at-large.